Cell site outages aren’t always aligned with commercial power outages

Assessing the correlation between commercial power outages and the ability for cell sites to keep operating with a backup power supply will be a work in progress for months to come as carriers and FCC analysts review data obtained through Hurricane Florence research.

An initial question might be why Pamlico County which currently has the Pamlico River flooding New Bern and other communities has one of the highest power outage levels in North Carolina, hovering at 60%, yet the FCC’s Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS) report for Sept. 18, 2018 identifies that not one cell site is out in the county that has approximately 19 sites.`

Sprint earlier this week said that in North Carolina a “relatively small number of down sites are primarily a result of commercial power outages.”